Manuel Spornberger

12 November 2013

Manuel Spornberger was born in Vienna, Austria. He attended BG Tulln, secondary school, specialising in languages. He speaks German, English and French. After graduating in spring 2013, he started his one-year internship at the European Roma Rights Center as part of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial service programme. He came here instead of serving the military or doing a civilian service in Austria. “I wanted to work with an organization that fights for a more tolerant and inclusive society and against discrimination of minorities.”
The centre’s motto “Challenging Discrimination Promoting Equality” appealed a lot to him.

He started his internship at the ERRC in September 2013, in order to diversify his knowledge about human rights and the situation of Roma in Europe, and also to get an insight into the work of an internationally active NGO. During the first months of his internship he has been mainly dealing with communications and website-tasks, but was also involved in various other projects. The European Roma Rights Centre is his first professional internship, but his interest in the field of human rights work has definitely been raised during his commitment there.

Romani and Traveller children in England are much more likely to be taken into state care than the majority population, and the numbers are rising. Between 2009 and 2016 the number of Irish Travellers in care has risen by 400% and the number of Romani children has risen 933%. The increases are not consistent with national trends, and when compared to population data, suggest that Romani and Traveller children living in the UK could be 3 times more likely be taken into public care than any other child.

There’s a high percentage of Romani and Egyptian children in children’s homes in Albania – a disproportionate number. These children are often put into institutions because of poverty, and then find it impossible ever to return to their families. Because of centuries of discrimination Roma and Egyptians in Albania are less likely to live in adequate housing, less likely to be employed and more likely to feel the effects of extreme poverty.